The previously unexplored world of curtains

Finally it is time to write.

I have my first Big Girl Apartment.

To think that last year this time I was in Vietnam somewhere (probably between Ho Chi Minh City and Hue), with not even the slightest foretaste that I'd be now in Ithaca, with a third-floor apartment right downtown, with a job at Cornell. The thoughts on my mind are no longer Oh Joy This Pho Is Only $1! and We Are Very Lost And It Is Very Sunny And We Can't Read The Road Signs. Now the thoughts are about area rugs and color coordination and an overwhelming need to unpack boxes and where-the-growl-are-all-my-writing-utensils. 

I am forced to write because I cannot make tea, I cannot vacuum or iron, and I can see nothing past 7:30pm in this new apartment of mine. There is no electricity at the moment. So I went out for electricity, and a latte, and here I am with a laptop watching the street go by.


My fridge items are squatting on my fire escape and my freezer items are becoming weepy. I bought them some ice today and shall hope for the best.

I needn't detail why I am devoid of electricity (I happily and un-gratefully experienced it when I first moved in, at least), but the nuggets and nubbins of it are: there was a crossed wire, erm as it were, with the previous occupants, and also NYSEG doesn't take Same Day Requests.

But electricity aside, this is the most thrilled I have ever been about an apartment. I'm not cloistered to just one bedroom in a shared house; I'm not living alone in a wheat field with upside down packing boxes for side tables and an air mattress for a bed; I'm not sleeping on a box spring; I'm not sharing a dark green hole with a grumpy roommate who refuses to speak to me; and I'm not in a college room in a busy dorm. The dirty dishes will be my dirty dishes and I have my very own living room. I've never had a living room before. And I'm deciding to be a bit more tasteful and grown up (what does that even mean?) thus I donated my pink plastic lamp and shall not hang anything that is unframed.

Various mother figures in my life have given me couches and dishes, table clothes and candlesticks. My Daddy made me an organ bed (with four wooden pipes that Actually Play--rather, make noise--and it is a mighty presence indeed in my bedroom).

In apartment hunting, I was a victor in finding this one. I'd seen the overheated slanted flat about the Chinese restaurant (inescapable smells of brown sauce, anyone?), a dark spot in college town with a view of someone's Party Litter backyard, an apartment in a building where there'd be nowhere reasonable to store my bicycle.

But this space is the entire top floor of a huge old house right near the center of town. Windows face all directions, there are wood floors and a sweet set of shelves built in above the stairs, which have a beautiful big wooden railing. I have space for huge kale projects in the kitchen, and I don't pay for heat. And oh I shall have parties!

I am happy to be living for the first time in amongst an urban center (as urban-ish as Ithaca is). I can walk in a few minutes for coffee, to shops, to the library, for a pint, for live music. None of this driving-25-minutes-nonsense or even biking a few miles. Because Ithaca feels like predominantly winter, being able to survive in the north will happen because I can tramp out in the snow just a few blocks and find light and warmth and other humans. (this doesn't stop me from missing the trains and ferns and mildness that is Seattle, though)

The help I received last weekend in setting up made me so grateful to have loving parents and easily-called upon friends. I was ramped and prancing from the excitement of seeing the space being filled.  Four different work-groups of friends at different times, in fact, helped me carry a mattress upstairs, clean the cabinets, and ferry endless caravans of boxes. It all went so fast, and I was gloriously happy to have the help. And my parents were so dear with their cleaning supplies, and trailer, and executive ideas about things.

But I had no idea I'd ever become so captivated by things like buying rugs. But here I am. Setting up this place is an exercise in aesthetics and decisions and design and it is quite fascinating. I feel very new and exploratory and am realizing that setting up an apartment is self-expression, just like choosing one's wardrobe.

There are so many decisions, decisions I didn't even know could exist, that germinate when one has to sow life freshly in a new space. Do shoes go in the entry way or bedroom? Do I want to have my scarves hanging or folded? Do spices go on the rack or in the cupboard?

Speaking of spices. One also learns truths about oneself, when one's life is extracted out of boxes and exposed in this way when moving. I realized I have an intractable penchant for spices. Cardamom in two forms, turmeric enough to stain an army, fenugreek, zatar, both multicolored peppercorns and plebeian peppercorns, allspice, French tarragon I harvested myself.....I tapped and spooned and puffed all these spices from Mennonite bulk containers into my unmatching eccentric little spice jars, then sneezed so violently I blew a few window gaskets.

(In addition to spices I love the scarves, the earrings, and the mugs.) 

I still feel very new here in Ithaca, but look forward to getting out from under my rug decisions and becoming a part of the community.

And now I need to stop writing and go think about curtains.

I went to my first estate sale with my Dad, and he did the amazing maneouver of backing the trailer right up to their garage.

Here my Dad sets up the Organist Bed. That tube is part of the bed.

I guess I like labeling things. Some of these boxes I packed over a year ago, before moving from Washington State to Geneva NY to my parents to my aunt's and uncles....